May 08, 2009

How many gods does it take to build a working artificial intelligence?, or, a Caprica review

Is the Sci Fi Channel (or, pardon me, Syfy) trying to doom Caprica before it even launches? It's been something like two weeks since the DVD came out, and I've heard barely a word about it. Probably because, like me, nobody wanted to spend 27 bucks on an unknown quantity, and they all waited for their Netflix copies to arrive. Well, my rented copy arrived this week, and I sure hope this botched release isn't part of a plan to tank the series, because the pilot is good. Really good, in fact. It's very, very different from Battlestar Galactica—there's nary a space battle to be found. But in terms of tone and setting, Caprica owes much to Gattaca—easily one of the best SF films of its decade. It’s nice to see a piece of filmic SF that doesn’t depend on explosions. (OK, fine, Caprica does depend pretty heavily on its one explosion. But that’s different.)

Some minor spoilers ahead.

The story begins 58 years before the events of Battlestar Galactica—years before the first Cylon War. We meet Zoe Graystone, daughter of a scientist who, after inventing a successful virtual reality interface, turns his attention to cybernetics. (Yep, that leads exactly where you think it does.) Zoe’s a bit of a genius herself, and she creates a virtual copy of her own mind in the VR world, a digital copy that’s struggling to understand itself and its connection with the real world. Zoe’s also a member of, for lack of a better description, a club of monotheists. Unfortunately, this group has links to a terrorist organization called Soldiers of the One, and Zoe is killed in a surprise suicide bombing carried out by one of her compatriots. When her father discovers the AI copy of his daughter a few weeks later, he’s inspired to put her into the robotic body he’s been building—and it looks like we’ll have to wait for the start of the series next year to see the full ramifications of that decision.

Caprica goes out of its way to avoid direct connections to the BSG universe for the first hour or so, and that’s a good thing. It sets us up to care about its characters on their own merits. That way, when they finally do show us, for instance, a young William Adama, it serves first and foremost to enhance Caprica’s story, not to append BSG’s. This show is determined to stand on its own two feet—and sturdy feet they are.

Hidden deep in the heart of the Caprica pilot is a "how the leopard got its spots" tale—but for "leopard" read "Cylons," and for "spots" read "monotheistic religion." If anything, the conflict between monotheism and polytheism will be even more central to Caprica than it was to BSG. In a conversation with the headmistress of Zoe’s school, the man investigating the bombing looks at the dangerous philosophy he sees lurking within monotheism:

It doesn’t concern you, Sister, that kind of absolutist view of the universe? Right and wrong determined solely by a single all-knowing, all-powerful being whose judgment cannot be questioned, and in whose name the most horrendous of acts can be sanctioned without appeal?

That’s a bleak portrait of monotheism, to be sure, but that’s the speaker’s bias. The monolog begs the question, however, of what kind of alternative polytheism is—can’t Caprica’s polytheists, too, find divine sanction for horrendous actions by appealing to a variety of minor gods? Indeed, a group of Hecate worshippers practices virtual human sacrifice in the VR world, so monotheism isn’t the only culprit in this culture. In any event, the role of religion in society is going to be a major factor in Caprica’s story.

Issues of race and class are also apparent, with one of the central character relationships being between the wealthy, WASP-y Caprican Daniel Graystone and the immigrant/peasant Tauron Joseph Adama, both of whom lost family members in the bombing. There are some nice hints about the differences between the various colonies' cultures—the bit about Taurons wearing black gloves when they're in mourning is a nice touch, and I hope we see more of that kind of detail.

But even more central is the question of artificial intelligence and the nature of the mind. The electronic copy of Zoe is a great means of discussing the nature of intelligence, mind, and soul. It’s particularly interesting that the digital doppelganger is built largely from external electronic information—report cards, receipts, medical reports, e-mails, and the like. How much of our selves is reflected in external data? This kind of discussion should shed some interesting light on the inner lives of Cylons as the story unfolds. Let’s just hope that Syfy gives Caprica a chance—it shows every sign of being a truly great show.

I believe the the BSG creator/creators are mormon, which are not monotheistic like they claim but polytheistic (Google it if you don't believe me), so it's not entirely surprising to see a pantheon of gods being worshipped as the primary religion in the show. Why the monotheists are being portrayed as terrorists I don't know but I'll keep watching and see.

Glen Larson, who created the original BSG, is Mormon, and intended the show as a vague science-fictionalization of Mormon concepts. IIRC, the creators of the remake claim not to have known about Larson's Mormonism while they were planning their show, though they may have let some elements seep back in after they learned about it.